A Capacitive Pressure Sensor for Monitoring of the Pectus Carinatum Treatment

Abstract

Pectus carinatum (PC) is a chest deformity caused by disproportionate growth of the costal cartilages compared to the bony thoracic skeleton, pulling the sternum towards, which leads to its protrusion. Currently, the most common noninvasive treatment is external compressive bracing, by means of an orthosis. However, the current orthoses are not suitable to continuously monitor the forces applied to the PC, and consequently to monitor the treatment. In this work, we propose a new design of a capacitive pressure sensor to be embedded into current commercially available orthosis. Finite element analysis methods are used to study the electromechanical behavior of the projected sensors. Compression tests were conducted on both simulation and experimental sensor and similar capacitance result was achieved on both cases for forces between ON and 300N, validating the construction process.